


Keep It Ugly

by Killedbycroc



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 07:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killedbycroc/pseuds/Killedbycroc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It didn’t matter how it happened, they all deviated away from the group, and we never heard from them again - it didn’t take a genius to work out that they had been exterminated. Now our numbers were down to a mere five, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were even less of us by the time we had completed our mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Look Alive, Sunshine

  The midday sun was bearing down on all of us, and it made being outside nearly unbearable, but we knew that we had to carry on, to try and find what had happened to the four Killjoys that were meant to be looking after the Little Girl. If we didn’t, then we all knew it wouldn’t be long until the Draculoids caught up and exterminated us – the girl was the only thing keeping them at a safe distance from us, and now that we didn’t have her anymore, we were completely vulnerable to their merciless attacks. Originally, there had been about seventeen people in our group, but some had gotten lost, or thought that they could do a better job on their own, or suspected the rest of us were conspiring against them... it didn’t matter how it happened, they all deviated away from the group, and we never heard from them again. It didn’t take a genius to work out that they had been exterminated. Now our numbers were down to a mere five, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were even less of us by the time we had completed our mission.

  I paused walking for a moment, surveying the vast area that surrounded us; the barren desert that was more commonly known as Zone 3 could barely support any form of life, with any person daring to try and survive here having to risk a trip into Battery City every couple of days to obtain the most basic of supplies, and every Killjoy knew there was a good chance that they would never return from Battery City, what with BL/ind desperately trying to remove every last citizen who did not want to be a part of their ‘perfect’ society and conform by taking their mind-control pills. It was hard trying to remember how everything became to this, why everyday was a fight for survival. Even though I was only nineteen, the only life I had properly known was one of being constantly on the run, never being able to stay somewhere long enough to be able to call it a ‘home’.

  Noticing that I had stopped, Planetary Poison followed suit and halted the others as well. “What’s wrong Aqua Starlight?” she asked me, clearly worried in case I had thought I’d caught a glimpse of any Dracs nearby.

  “I was just thinking,” I told her, the anxiety leaving her as quickly as it had entered in the first place. “It’s just...” Glancing at her face through my acid rain-proof sunglasses, I could see that she was hanging onto my every word, desperately hoping that I knew something that would be the key to destroying the society we had spent so many years rebelling against. “Y’know what kid? It doesn’t matter. It’s not worth dwelling on the past.” The look of disappointment was only in Planetary Poison’s eyes for a second, but that was all it took for an emotion to have a devastating effect on you. Well, that’s all it took my mother...

  “Are you two done?” Plasma Bomb enquired. “We need to cover as much ground as possible today, seeing as I’ve picked up a transmission five minutes ago saying that temps are only gonna reach a low of 107 degrees today, plus there’s a slight risk of an acid rain storm developing in parts of Zone 3B and 3D at about half seven tonight.” This was not good news at all – even though these storms were usually short-lived, they could drain your energy and destroy your protective clothing within a matter of mere seconds, and seeing as we had started out from the outer limits of Zone 3 only four hours ago, we needed to move. And fast.

  Quickly, I devised a plan of action in my head. Planetary Poison, Cyanide Imploder, Plasma Bomb, and Emerald Hurricane all stood around silently whilst I explained to them what we were going to do. “Okay, so we’ve got about seven hours to try and find some sort of shelter for the night. Plasma, you keep scanning the frequencies, see if there’s any pirate stations that can give us any information.” Briefly nodding, he began to fiddle with a small pocket radio that he had managed to steal after a trip to Battery City – an item which was worth its weight in gold out here in the desert. “Cyanide, I want you to keep a lookout for any flies – remember, the government flies have only been put out recently, so hopefully they shouldn’t be too advanced, but we can’t be too careful these days.” She nodded dutifully; I asked her because she had far superior eyesight to the rest of us, for reasons that we had never managed to figure out. “And obviously, everybody keep your eyes open for Dracs. We picked up on a transmission a couple of days ago that said BL/ind were widening their search for ‘our kind’, so we have to assume their surveillance is now further out than just Zone 1.” These were certainly tough times for us Killjoys, but all it did was give us further motivation to bring down our corrupt government, to let people live in safety like the times before. “Is everyone clear on what we have to do?” They all nodded, and so we set off, Plasma Bomb desperately searching through the frequencies as he tried to find something, anything at all, that could help us on this more-likely-than-not suicide mission. Looking up to the sky for some sort of reassurance, I knew we had to do it to save the ones without a voice, the vulnerable – to save ourselves and Killjoys the world over.


	2. System Failure For The Masses

  The time quickly began to approach seven, and still no sign of any sort of shelter; Plasma Bomb wasn’t having much luck trying to find information either. It was all starting to seem just the smallest bit hopeless, but then, far off in the distance, Cyanide Imploder noticed a tiny shack – when we began to get closer, it barely looked big enough to fit two people, let alone five. Still, it was the only option that we had, unless we fancied being slowly burned alive by the acid rain.

  Upon entering, we were promptly greeted by trash, and lots of it – clearly the people staying here before us were in a hurry to leave. Getting to work so that it would become even remotely liveable (even if it was only for one night), I managed to find a gem hidden in amongst the piles of rubbish, namely a map of Battery City and the surrounding zones. “Good find,” Emerald Hurricane complimented me, “we’re definitely going to need one of those if we want any chance of actually succeeding with this mission.” After more cleaning, Planetary Poison found some cans of Power Pup, so we all decided it would be a good idea to wind down for the evening, especially since we were going to have another long day ahead of us tomorrow.

  While eating what was essentially human dog food, I worked on a brief plan of action for tomorrow, even though more likely than not the plans would be out of the window as soon as we stepped foot outside... “Okay,” I addressed everyone, mouth still half-full, “so basically what we want to do tomorrow is cross the border into Zone 2 and travel as far as we can before dusk starts to hit. Now, Zone 2 is where the majority of Killjoys have their base, so if we bump into any of them, then do _not_ mention what we are doing – even if they say they want to come and help, they might try and claim glory for themselves, at _any_ cost. If asked, then just say we’re trying to find Dr. D after a transmission we received from him.”

  “But isn’t that what we’re trying to do?” As always, Cyanide Imploder was the rational thinker of the group.

  “That isn’t our main objective, but yes, if we discover his whereabouts, then we’ll go to him and try to find more information.” After that, we ate in silence, so I assumed we were all on a mutual understanding.

  Once everyone else had closed their eyes and drifted off to sleep, I got up, unable to turn off the thoughts that kept me awake just like every other night. Determining it safe enough, I stepped outside into the night air, which was only marginally cooler than it had been during the day, and I let everything wash over me, starting with the message that brought us here in the first place...  
  _It had been yet another ordinary day in the life of a Killjoy living in the zones – killing Dracs, scavenging for food and other supplies, trying to stay off the radar of BL/ind – when a transmission had come through on the radio in the shack where the Killjoys had been living for the past week. But something was different about this transmission, because it wasn’t from BL/ind or any other radio station that we had been aware of; instead, it was from an individual who would only identify themselves as Dr. D._

_At the time, I was the only one around, with the others still out practicing with their brand new ray-gun (Emerald Hurricane) and trying to find more supplies (everyone else), but I had to pick up the transmission, especially since we hadn’t had contact with any other Killjoys for a good few months. “This is Aqua Starlight, over,” I spoke nervously into the mouthpiece when I saw the flashing red light on the radio set._

_The voice on the other end was a booming one, and I jumped the first time they spoke. “Are you in the zones tumbleweed? Over.”_

_“Um, Zone 3. Who are you anyway? Over.” Why was this person concerned about where I was?_

_“My name is Dr. D, and I have something of critical importance to ask of you. Have you heard of The Fabulous Killjoys? Over.”_

_“Of course I have. Over.” I mean, who_ hadn’t _heard of The Fabulous Killjoys? They were only the most notorious group living in the zones, what with their high Drac kill rate and live fast, die hard attitude._

 _“Well I have some troubling news for you motor baby – they made a trip to the soul-stealing place known as Battery City three days ago to bring the Little Girl back to her rightful home, and there’s been no sign of life from them since. Now, while BL/ind would never hurt her, I regrettably cannot say the same for those proud and honourable Killjoys, and this is why I’m providing you with the knowledge from across the zones. I would have been following in their footprints in a desert-day heartbeat, but I’ve gotta keep supplying all the other Killjoys out in the zones with the slaughtermatic sounds to keep them from getting ghosted, so it is my greatest honour, young crash queen, to ask you to round up others of our kind and go bring back the girl and the greatest Killjoys that this planet has ever known. Over.” At first, I was almost, no,_ definitely _sure that I had heard that wrong – who would even begin to think about asking_ me _, Aqua Starlight, and my small, severely undertrained group of Killjoys, to go all the way to Battery City to save the best Killjoys in the world?_

_“My group are nowhere near able enough to take on a mission as deadly – and important – as that. What makes you think we’ll have any chance of success? Over.”_

_There was a short pause of silence from the machine. “You may doubt your own ability, motor baby, but as a Killjoy, you possess everything that you need to take on the ones that control the master plan. And I know that you’re not a quitter, so lemme tell you something – the ones that don’t quit, they don’t die, because they don’t surrender their shadows to wander these lonely, lonely zones if someone tried to ghost them. That’s how I know you’re gonna win. Over.”_

_I thought about it for a second, but a second was all that it took. “Okay, we accept. I won’t let you down Dr. D. Over.”_

_“That’s good to hear, tumbleweed.” I could practically hear the smile in his voice. “Now you know what you gotta do, so I’ll leave you now and tell all the other rock and rollers that are surfing the transmissions the good news. This is Dr. D, over and out.” Once he had gone from the airwaves, I was left to wonder, still holding onto the mouthpiece, why it had been us chosen to do this; maybe there had been someone up there looking down on us, knowing that in us, we had the right stuff to take this mission and turn it into the stuff of legends. Standing up slowly, I went to wait outside, to inform the other Killjoys of what lay ahead of us, what could turn us into heroes._

  All these days later, I still couldn’t understand why it had been us chosen, but I wasn’t going to argue with it anymore, and just learn to accept that this was what fate had decided was going to happen to us. Fate... it felt slightly weird that in these times when everything was a fight for survival, I still had the strength to believe in fate and destiny and all those other your-life-is-already-planned-out things. Then again, when you were living in the zones, you needed to find something that meant you kept your sanity when living alone from the majority of society.

  Staring blankly out into the desert night, I almost didn’t notice Plasma Bomb sitting on the dusty, sand-covered ground until I nearly tripped straight over him. “Sorry...” I started to apologise, but he turned to face me and tapped at the thing in his ear. Carefully pulling it out, I spoke once more, knowing that this time, he could actually hear me. “I said sorry for nearly tripping over you.” Nodding towards me as if to say ‘it’s okay’, I sat down next to him, watching as he kept flicking through the frequencies, each one seeming to bring him more disappointment than the last. “You know you need to get some sleep. You’re not going to be good to anybody if you’re dead on your feet.”

  “Same could be said for you,” he snorted as he stopped fiddling with the radio and took the other earphone out. “You’re not going to be doing anybody any favours if we’re surrounded by Dracs and you have no sort of plan for us because you can’t think straight.”

  “Maybe,” I said, trying to find a loophole around his near-flawless logic, “but I hardly ever sleep these days, so I’m used to it. You, on the other hand...”

  “Okay, okay, I see your point,” he waved my comment away, even though he clearly knew that I was right. “But I need to keep scanning, it’s the only way we’re gonna find any sort of information. Hell, I might even be able to find this guy that messaged us in the first place.” I had to admit, if he could do that, then we would have our best chance of working out what happened to The Fabulous Killjoys.

  “What have you found so far then?” I asked after a few brief moments of silence.

  “Nothing.” Plasma Bomb spat on the ground, so I knew that this was really pissing him off. “Everything out there’s BL/ind, except for one thing that was just playing The Mad Gear and Missile Kid. Aqua,” he stared me straight in the eyes, “how the hell are we meant to do this? We’ve had nowhere near enough training to be able to take on a handful of Dracs, let alone a whole army of them, and we don’t even know where exactly we’re meant to be going. Why are we doing this? Don’t you know that we’re probably going to die?”

  I didn’t have an answer for him, seeing as I had thought that way too, but Dr. D’s words came back to me, just when I needed them the most. “The ones that don’t quit, don’t die.” Confusion swept across Plasma’s face, so I knew it would take a little more explanation for him to get it. “We just have to give it everything that we’ve got, and more. That way, we know that we did the best that we could.”

  This seemed to satisfy him for a minute, until the confusion crept back onto his face. “But... what if our best isn’t good enough?”  
  I didn’t have an answer for that.


	3. Anti Matter For The Master Plan

  Obviously, I must have passed out, as the next time I opened my eyes, the sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon. Looking to the right of me, I noticed that I had fallen asleep onto Plasma Bomb’s shoulder, who was thankfully still sleeping peacefully himself. Carefully manoeuvring myself so I didn’t wake him up, I headed back inside to see what other supplies we could scavenge before moving on. A couple of piles later, a set of keys fell out from between a couple of papers – I hadn’t noticed a car or bike around, but we had only really seen the front of the shack. Venturing out the back, I laid my gaze on something that was _definitely_ a sight for sore eyes; in all its wondrous glory, covered in paint splatters of several different colours, was a beat up, rusting, run-down car. Despite all this – and the fact that I had no idea whether it would run – I immediately ran over, and planted a kiss on the old car’s bonnet, more than ecstatic to find something like this, something as insanely inappropriate, in this barren land. Nervously, I opened the driver’s door and sat inside, my hand shaking like crazy as I tried to put the key into the ignition. Swiftly turning it, the engine coughed and spluttered heavily, trying to resist all attempts at starting up, until I was finally rewarded with the sweet, sweet sound of success when it eventually purred into life. “Well done baby,” I murmured softly to the car.

  Determining it to be a reasonable enough time, I went back inside the tiny shack and woke everyone up, letting them know the good news. “Sweet!” Emerald Hurricane enthusiastically punched the air with his right arm. “Now we’re _ready_ to take on these motherfuckers! Lemme tell you, they won’t know what hit them when they see us.” It was refreshing to see some eagerness and positivity for once, but I knew that we couldn’t let it get to our heads, seeing as we had barely started out.

  After going outside to check on Plasma Bomb – who had still had no luck on finding useful transmissions – we all piled into the car, after we made the very, _very_ difficult decision of who should be allowed to drive.

  “I still say it should be me,” Cyanide Imploder yelled for about the hundredth time in two minutes. “I mean, I have superior eyesight to all of you, and we’re gonna need that if we don’t feel like crashing today...”

  Planetary Poison snorted heavily. “Yeah, but what good is having excellent eyesight when you don’t have a sense of direction to go with it?”

  “At least I know the difference between forwards and reverse!”

  “Stop you guys!” As soon as the words escaped from my mouth, both of them shut up, leaving me not quite sure as to what to say next. “Since you can’t decide amongst yourselves who’s going to drive, then _I_ get to choose.” Briefly looking at them, it didn’t take a genius to work out who I was going to pick. “Emerald, would you like to drive?”

  “ _Hell_ yeah, baby,” he yelled, sweet satisfaction spreading across his face as he took the car keys from the palm of my hand.

  Even though I was sure it would stop those two arguing, Planetary wasn’t satisfied. “ _What?!_ Why the _hell_ did you pick _him?!”_

  “Because,” I calmly explained, “he was the only one not arguing over wanting to drive, and I don’t need either one of you trying to prove that you’re a better driver by performing some stupid stunt that could get us killed.”

  “What about Plasma though? _He_ wasn’t arguing either, and yet you didn’t pick him.” A small smug grin appeared on Cyanide’s face, thinking that she had found a flaw in my logic.

  “We need him to keep scanning the frequencies though, and he’s the only one who can do it.” Out of ideas, Cyanide and Planetary stared at each other, with it being the first time in about ten minutes that they had been completely silent; I took the opportunity while I could. “Alright everybody, let’s get in the car and set our destination for Zone 2.”

  To prevent anymore arguments breaking out, I made Planetary sit in the front, and I put Cyanide as far away from her as possible. With the car only being small, I found myself in quite close proximity to Plasma Bomb, seeing as Cyanide kept trying to put her feet up on me. “Hey, Cyanide, mind if you don’t infect the rest of the car with that bad smell from your feet? Some of us like being able to breathe.” Plasma’s almost-instant remark had me in stitches in a matter of moments, which forced Cyanide to move her feet back off me.

  “Thanks,” I managed to murmur to him once I’d been able to breathe normally again.

  “No problem,” he murmured back as he offered me a cheeky wink; my chest did some weird flipping-turning thing that I couldn’t quite understand. There was no time for questions, however, as Emerald brought the car to life, and so we were off once again.

 

  Two hours later, and we were all starting to get incredibly bored – and annoyed. “I _told_ you to take that last exit! Now we’re further into the desert with absolutely _no_ idea where we are, and it’s all thanks to _you_!” The effects of spending such a long time in the car were definitely taking its toll on Planetary more than any other person, and when something got on her nerves, she began to get on all of _our_ nerves.

  “It’s a _desert_ with _no_ other cars around – I can just turn around...” Emerald was dealing with her tremendously well, but his fuse seemed to run short just at that moment. “What? Oh no, come on, don’t stop, don’t fucking stop!” At first, we didn’t get what he was yelling at, but as the car rolled to a gradual stop, we all understood perfectly. “Aaaah you stupid piece of crap! What thick shithead decided to invent you, huh? If I ever lay my hands on him...” He kept muttering to himself as he got out of the car and popped open the hood to take a closer look at whatever the problem turned out to be. Once a whole load of smoke blew up into his face, we knew there was very little chance of salvaging the situation, seeing as none of us had any experience with cars whatsoever, though that certainly didn’t stop Emerald from trying.

  After about five minutes had past, with still no sign of success, we were all beginning to slowly overheat in the car, since the air conditioning had died along with everything else. “I can’t take it anymore, I’m getting out of here.” Cyanide began to open the car door, but I reached across her and slammed it shut. “Why the hell did you do that,” she glared evilly at me, “it’s roasting and I’m going to _die_ if I don’t get out of here within the next thirty seconds.”

  “Are you stupid or just plain ignorant?” I shot daggers at her, but she still didn’t seem to get the message. “This area is _full_ of Drac activity, and if you start to wander about, then they’ll be after us before you can say ‘exterminated’. Do I make myself clear?” She kept her mouth shut, so I took that as a sign that she was sulking. To be honest, I didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t putting us into any more danger than necessary.

  More time passed, the tension within the car getting to levels which were nearly unbearable, before Emerald Hurricane opened the door. “Sorry guys, but it looks like the car’s wasted. There’s nothing I can do, so it looks like we’re walking from here.” Great, just the news that I didn’t want to hear.

  “Looks like your plan’s already gone out of the window, Aqua,” Cyanide smugly declared as she got out of the car, much to my annoyance.

  As much as it pained me, I had to admit that it was nice to get out of the car, even if it was still blistering hot in the open sun compared to the temperatures I had become used to before I discovered the truth about BL/ind. Strangely enough, I was beginning to miss those times of pure ignorance, where everything in the world was still perfect to me; once I had discovered all of those truths behind the company, well, it made me slightly cynical – whether it was a mechanism to stop me from getting hurt again, I don’t know, but it just didn’t feel like everyone was seeing the real me. Even though I hadn’t taken any of their pills, BL/ind had changed me into a worse person. “Hey, Aqua, you okay?” Emerald called out to me, snapping me out of my trance, when I noticed that they were quite a few metres ahead of me.

  “Yeah, sure,” I replied, shaking my head in an attempt to fully bring me back to reality. Now’s not the time for reminiscing, I told myself, there’s more important things to worry about right now. Like not getting ghosted.

  Catching up to them, I couldn’t help but to let my mind begin to wander again – it wasn’t like there was much else to do whilst in the desert. At first, I tried to stay focused on working out our next plan-of-action, though slowly but surely I found myself thinking about BL/ind and the past again.

 

_Back then, way before Killjoys and Dracs and even the Zones, it had just been me and my mother, living peacefully on the edges of what is now known as Battery City. Everything had been going great for us – I had a group of friends at school, we were financially secure, and we lived in a nice little suburb. However, things started to chance when my mother became ill. Before I knew it, we had no money, and I had to drop out of school to look after her, meaning that the relationships with all my friends was severed almost instantaneously.  
  It was certainly a difficult couple of years, but one day, an up-and-coming company called Better Living Industries began to advertise these pills that claimed to be able to fix any sort of problem that a person may have. Well, as soon as my mother saw this, she was beyond determined to get those pills, as no doctor had been able to fully diagnose her, plus by now she was beginning to get visibly weaker each day.  
  Knowing that we didn’t have any money to spare, I had to try to get them for the sake of my mother, even though I didn’t have much confidence. Much to my surprise, as soon as I walked into the pharmacy, I was handed a bottle of BL/ind pills, all of them completely free; well, I wasn’t going to argue with that, and so I ran home as fast as my legs would carry me. It was almost impossible to explain, but the effects those pills had on my mother were pretty much instant – the colour began to return to her cheeks, there was a sparkle in her eye, and, most importantly, it no longer looked like she was in agony. Only a few weeks passed before she was well enough to start working again, which meant I could return to school. In less than six months, my mother had earned enough money for us to move to a new house, one that had been specifically been built for BL/ind employees. On the outside, it looked like things had worked out perfectly, but all wasn’t as it seemed._

_Around this time was when the first news of ‘Killjoys’ was being reported – dangerous outlaws that were against BL/ind and all that they did for citizens. When I first saw them, I couldn’t understand why they would do that, rebel against a society that was perfect in every way possible. Without so much as a second thought, I shoved the Killjoys into the back of my mind, determined that I would never give up the life that I had._

_A few days after that report, I went with my mother to work, seeing as she had gotten into her head that I would go to work at BL/ind, just as she had, once I had left school, not that I had any objections to that plan. At first glance, everything around the impressive building seemed pretty normal enough, what with its pure white hallways and fairly plain interior, but it was only after we’d entered a room that I started to learn the truth about BL/ind..._

 

  I was still desperately lost in my past memories when I was furiously hurled to the ground without any prior warning – with the person’s full weight on top of me, I struggled to breathe. “Move... please.”

  “Shh,” whoever was on top of me whispered quite loudly, “there are Dracs about.”

  “How many?”  
  Shifting their weight off of me, I was able to see that it was Emerald Hurricane who had knocked me to the ground so viciously, and that everyone else was taking shelter a couple of rocks away. “At least ten, but it’s almost definite that there’s more than that.” Staring into my eyes, I could tell that he was trying to mask his fear with the excitement that the fight brought. “What are we going to do? They’re gonna find us in a few minutes if we don’t act now.”

  “Okay,” I said after a moment’s thought, “what we’re gonna do is, we’re gonna stay over here, and the others over there, and we’ll try some sniper-style shooting to take a couple of them out. Stay under cover for as long as possible, do you hear me?” Emerald nodded, and then mouthed the instructions across to the others; Cyanide nodded to acknowledge the plan.

  Waiting not-so-patiently for about a minute or so, we spotted our first Drac, coming perilously close to our hide-out – Planetary fired the first shot, and it was a direct hit. Silently, we congratulated her, because we were still relatively inexperienced when it came to combat. Mere seconds later, a second one appeared. And then a third. And then a forth. They were all taken out with relative ease, but we knew that they would soon be coming in faster and bigger waves; all we could do was hope that there wasn’t too many of them.

  Just as predicted, more and more of them came – I’d lost count at about twenty. We were all still hidden behind the rocks, and for the most part it seemed like the Dracs were pretty clueless as to where we were.

  As a Drac approached closer to us, Emerald attempted to fry his brains, but was confused when he pulled the trigger and nothing came out of the gun. “Stupid thing, why won’t it fire?” The Drac walked closer and closer to us, making the situation increasingly tense with every step closer it got. “Aqua, do something!”

  “I can’t!” I had my own mini-situation to deal with, as four Dracs were starting to close in on me. “Just take my spare gun.” Emerald began to search in my bag, but when more than a couple of seconds had passed, I began to get anxious. “What’s taking you so long?”

  “I can’t find it! I can’t find the stupid gun!” Glancing over to the other Drac, I saw that he was only about ten metres away.

  “Well you’re gonna have to hurry up...”

  “Why isn’t it here?!”

  “Do something Emerald, there’s no time to find the gun!” There was a hesitation, but Emerald did the only thing that he could think of – hurl his now useless gun at the Drac. A fatal move.

  Every other Drac within twenty metres turned around to stare at us, effectively ruining what had been a perfect hiding spot. Both Dracs and Killjoys stood motionless, waiting for the other to make the first move. “Aqua,” Emerald discreetly murmured to me, “what do we do now?” It was like a stand-off, between both sides, but it gave me precious time to think. “Aqua!”

  Looking at where the Dracs were positioned, I knew there was only one option for us. “Run!” As soon as the word escaped my lips, the five of us were on the move, probably all thinking the same thought of ‘how could Emerald be so stupid’.

  The tactic, however, was severely flawed – almost instantaneously, the Dracs were on our tails, and catching up pretty fast. “Split up!” Plasma yelled over to all of us, and since we had no other plan, we split up, hoping it meant we could confuse the Dracs and take them on more easily. Thankfully,  Emerald stuck by Planetary, knowing that she had more than enough ammo to cover the both of them, but I had moved a distance away from them in an attempt to split the Dracs up so we could take them on more easily.

  A couple of times, I glanced over at the rest of them, but I lost them after about a minute or so. Figuring it was safe to do so, I paused, resting briefly against a rock that was barely big enough to hide me. Even though fighting the Dracs – and not getting annihilated within a few seconds – was beyond exhilarating, I was definitely exhausted, and was hoping that the Dracs had given up and turned round after we’d split up.  
  Once a few more minutes had passed, I began to get worried; I’d heard nothing from anyone else over my pocket radio-system about where they were. Had they all been ghosted within the blink of an eye? I knew that was completely unlikely, but deep down, I couldn’t help to think that I was the only one left; if I was, what was I going to do? Without support from the others, trying to get into Battery City would be like a suicide mission for one. No, I told myself, I can’t think negatively, and just waiting here for nothing isn’t exactly going to help either.

  Getting up and dusting myself off, I turned around, ready to find the others – and found myself faced with a gun pointing directly to my head, courtesy of a lone Drac. The mask was expressionless, of course, but it was like I could almost feel a smug smirk radiating from it, knowing that it had found me at my weakest and most vulnerable. In my head, I could nearly hear it saying “You’d better say your last words, punk. Oh, and make it quick, will ya?”

  “Sorry Dr. D,” I muttered faintly, “I guess my shadow’s gonna have to surrender.” And then I waited to die.


	4. Louder Than God's Revolver

  Once that gun was pointed to my head, everything seem to get incredibly calm and peaceful, the complete opposite of how I was feeling inside. It almost felt like the wind had stopped blowing, like time itself had paused. Preparing myself for the inevitable, I closed my eyes, not wanting to witness what was coming next.

  Moments passed, and yet nothing happened; more seconds went by, and yet I stayed alive. Daring to take a peek, I opened my eyes just in time to move out of the way of the Drac that was toppling over.

  For what felt like an eternity, I stared at the thing slumped at my feet, not daring to believe that I had been a breath away from death itself. “Did you actually have any idea how close you came to being ghosted, or did you think everything would turn out okay as long as you had a wing and a prayer?” In the instant that the voice defiantly spoke out, I whipped my ray gun out of its holster and pointed it towards the aforementioned person. “Whoa whoa whoa, I just saved you from a Drac and _this_ is how you repay me? I had no idea you outer-zone Killjoys were so hostile...”

  “Look here,” I told him, “I don’t know you, therefore you are a threat to me.” My grip on the gun tightened. “Even if you killed a Drac, how do I know that you’re not going to do something a hundred times worse to me, huh? Sorry, but this is really the only option for me.” Getting ready to pull the trigger, I watched the supposed ‘Killjoy’ squirm, although he desperately tried to stay composed.

  In a flash, however, the ray gun was shot from my hand in a blinding-white moment. “Don’t shoot!” Emerald yelled from a vague distance. “They’re Killjoys, they’re on our side!”

  “How do you know, huh? How do I know they haven’t brainwashed you into believing that?”

  “Listen to yourself, Aqua. You’re sounding like the heat’s gone and fried your brain.” He tried to reason with me, but I wasn’t willing to listen.

  “There is NO proof!”

  “Oh yeah? Aqua, meet Alteration Airwave. I believe you know each other.” Once those words were spoken, I turned around in utter disbelief; just as Emerald had said, Alteration Airwave was there, stood looking triumphant along with everybody else.

  “I’m back,” she simply spoke. “Miss me?”


End file.
